That "yes" or "no" question, "Can a florist in Indiana refuse to serve a gay couple without fear of punishment," was dodged by Pence, as were additional iterations, ranging from whether the law's general intent was to enshrine the right of private business owners to deny service to customers for religious reasons, to whether Pence personally believed that such discrimination was lawful.

Pence never answered one way or the other. Instead, showing an Ed Milliband-like flair for repeating one's talking points, Pence largely stuck to his script, insisting that the Indiana law was in no relevant way distinct from similar laws -- including the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed decades ago and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. (This is not, in fact, true.) At a point, though, you can see the patience drain from Pence's face, as he offered one intriguing deviation from his flash cards:

PENCE: George, look, the issue here is, you know, is tolerance a two-way street or not? I mean, you know, there’s a lot of talk about tolerance in this country today having to do with people on the left. And a -- but here Indiana steps forward to protect the constitutional rights and privileges of freedom of religion for people of faith and families of faith in our state and this avalanche of intolerance that’s been poured on our state is just outrageous.

Here, Pence is retreating to a rhetorical fortress of sofa pillows that some conservatives often crawl behind when the sentiments of the vox populi bend in the direction of calling them out for bigotry. You liberals want everyone to be tolerant! But you're not tolerant of us! Gotcha!

There is so much confusion tied up in that defense, it might seem senseless to even try to untangle it. In terms of the ever-growing national support for LGBT rights, especially, the argument sounds like the death rattle of an old way of thinking that's quickly going extinct. But given how often people like Pence deploy this argument, it's worth giving disentangling it a shot. Let's start at a basic level: To be tolerant does not mean that one must be tolerant of intolerance. Okay? If you tolerate intolerance, you have, well ... promulgated intolerance. That would seem a self-affirming point, but it clearly is not obvious to the Pences of the world, so let's peel it back further.

When a person says, "Hey, let's please be tolerant of others, even if they are of a different race or gender or creed or religion or sexual orientation," what is typically meant is that such people should be treated equally by society. They should have the same legal rights and opportunities as everybody else. The same fair shot at carving out a decent life. That's what most people mean when they talk about being tolerant. Critically, what is not being demanded is universal agreement, or even universal acceptance. Indeed, the ability to countenance our occasional disagreements and allow for criticism in a tolerant manner is something that makes our society stronger.

What Pence is doing, unfortunately, is confusing criticism for intolerance. Right now, the wide world is learning about Indiana's law, discovering that it is in many meaningful ways different from previous Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, and reacting with a collective "Duh fuh?" This reaction, as much as Pence would prefer to believe otherwise, is a thing that's well beyond the coordination and control of a monolithic "Left." But even if it were, the simple fact of the matter is that criticism of the law is absolutely legitimate. There's nothing distinctly unfair or intolerant in debating or critiquing the actions of lawmakers or the laws they pass. That's just the price of doing business in politics.

And speaking of, there is a price of doing business in business as well. A law that forbids discriminating against customers based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or et cetera -- that, my friends, is the real two-way street. What is a "two-way street" after all, if not a promise to everyone traveling upon it that bright yellow lines, illegal to cross, run right down the center? What Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its unique statutory language has done is remove those sensible yellow lines. Gone is a world in which people walking into private businesses can be assured they won't be discriminated against. Now, in this new Indiana, business owners face the undue burden of having to publicly proclaim themselves to be practicing fair and equal customer service. What was once automatically assumed -- the neighborly, amicable relationship between business and customer -- has become something that everyone now has to double-check and newly ensure.

Part of what Pence describes as an "avalanche of intolerance" is the reaction from those recognizing that a line has been crossed, who are now resolved to withhold their custom from the state of Indiana until such time as the previous, two-way street regime is restored. Pence is incorrect to describe this as "intolerance." What Pence needs to understand is that this reaction is simply the natural consequence of the actions he took as governor.

The assurance of fair, non-discriminatory business practices is, as it turns out, pretty essential in a competitive marketplace. And when you take away that assurance, you imperil your ability to compete. Just as an openly discriminatory florist opens itself up to the risk that not enough people will want to continue doing business with it to maintain that business, so too does an openly discriminatory state endanger its ability to maintain itself economically.

Those are the consequences. And consequences have nothing to do with tolerance. All the states that Indiana competes with for economic benefactors will happily tolerate Indiana's law all the way to the bank. Anyone who tells you that "tolerance" is supposed to provide everyone with the means of living a consequence-free existence has badly lost the thread.

If there's something meaningful to be learned here, however, it's that talking about tolerance is much easier than building and maintaining a tolerant society. It should be acknowledged that this Indiana law exists because of a tension between differing communities of people, and different schools of thought. Resolving this tension will take hard work. But it's precisely hard and conscientious work that everyone deserves. To be tolerant is to acknowledge this, and to seek reasonable reconciliations and accommodations in instances like this. Were Pence a more conscientious governor, he'd recognize that the solution that's been crafted is neither sufficiently reasonable, nor sufficiently accommodating, and he'd resolve to work harder at achieving something that is.

His protestations of intolerance aside, Pence is fully entitled to believe that gay people are icky, or Godless, or whatever he wants. He just can't -- without criticism -- enshrine the right to discriminate into the law. No one is stopping anyone from having these opinions, coming on television to express that opinion, or even holding office while possessing these views. You just can't have a whites-only lunch counter, or a straights-only bakery. Or, perhaps in Indiana, you can, but if you do, then people who are being discriminated against have a right to encourage people to take their business elsewhere and criticize those business practices. And those on the receiving end of that reaction will, unfortunately, have to tolerate that. ]]>Social Security Fight Heats Up In Maryland Senate Racetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-18T20:55:25-04:002015-03-19T00:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) promoted a bill that would boost Social Security checks for many low-income seniors and strengthen the program.

Blumenthal thanked his Senate colleagues for being there, then gestured toward Van Hollen, saying he hoped the congressman would soon join him in the upper chamber.

It was an awkward moment for an endorsement. Standing behind Blumenthal was Rep. Donna Edwards, another Maryland Democrat. She's running against Van Hollen for the Senate seat.

But it wasn't an endorsement, said Josh Zembick, a spokesman for Blumenthal. The senator “didn't see Donna Edwards there, she was standing behind him," he said. "He only saw Congressman Van Hollen."

Blumenthal "was talking about the generic Democratic candidate and making that statement," Zembick said. "He'd like to see a Democrat in the Senate from Maryland."

An Edwards campaign spokesman declined to comment on the episode, and it's unlikely to move the needle in Maryland (Quick, Maryland residents, no Googling: Who's Richard Blumenthal?). But the issue at the center of Wednesday's event is proving to be a potent one in the Senate race.

In a campaign email to supporters after the press conference, Edwards said she, unlike Van Hollen, deserves the backing of people who care deeply about Social Security.

“This morning, I joined with my colleagues in reintroducing an important bill that would protect and expand Social Security,” Edwards wrote. “There were a number of new faces, but I have always been there.

“As an original co-sponsor of the Social Security 2100 Act to expand Social Security benefits, I am thrilled that more and more elected officials are recognizing that too many of America's seniors live on the edge,” Edwards' email continued. “Too many Democrats -- to say nothing of Republicans -- remain all too willing to hurt grandparents, retired veterans, and the disabled in the name of ‘compromise.’”

Edwards' emphasis that she has "always" supported Social Security and her scare quotes around "compromise" are a dig at Van Hollen, who has been targeted by progressive activists backing Edwards. They've been bashing Van Hollen for his previous support of a deficit-reduction framework that included cuts to Social Security. In 2012, he endorsed the concept of the Simpson-Bowles plan in failed legislation that aimed to avoid automatic federal spending cuts. That plan would have increased the taxable maximum on income, calculated cost-of-living raises differently to slow spending, and raised the retirement age in 2050.

“That mix of cuts, but also revenue, is the right way to go,” Van Hollen said at the time. Progressive activists have been hammering him for supporting Simpson-Bowles, highlighting the peril for Democrats who express openness to reducing benefits people feel they have earned over their lifetime.

Van Hollen has maintained that his comments were taken out of context and said he never supported cuts to Social Security. When NBC's Chris Jansing asked him in November 2012 if he was a firm no on cuts to Social Security, he said, "Well, we need a long-term solution to Social Security," noting that it wasn't a pressing issue and even Simpson-Bowles dealt with it separately from the rest of the budget. But as for the cuts to the program, he added, "I don't agree with their specifics on Social Security."

When a bill similar to Simpson-Bowles came up for a vote in the House, Van Hollen voted against it. In July 2011, when the White House proposed trimming benefits in its annual budget, Van Hollen pushed back.

On Wednesday, Van Hollen publicly backed a bill that is a significant step forward in the debate over Social Security. The Democratic' legislation, introduced this week by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), would expand benefits by giving retirees and disabled workers larger annual cost-of-living increases, and would improve the program's finances through higher taxes. Social Security's retirement insurance program has a $2.6 trillion trust fund that will be depleted by 2035, with projected incoming payroll taxes at that point only enough to cover roughly 80 percent of scheduled benefits.

The Larson bill would give a sizable boost in payments to the poorest quarter of Social Security recipients, and would make it fully funded for 75 years. Currently, only the first $118,000 of a worker's wages are subject to Social Security payroll taxes. The Democrats' legislation would shore up the trust fund largely by imposing the tax on incomes above $400,000.

"You don't save Social Security by cutting Social Security," said Van Hollen.

He won backing from Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, who said in a statement Wednesday, “Once again, the House Republican budget is trying to undermine seniors’ retirement security. Once again, seniors, workers with disabilities –- including veterans –- and survivors can count on Chris Van Hollen to protect their earned Social Security benefits.”

The groups targeting Van Hollen -- Social Security Works, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Credo Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee -- pressed him for more. "Van Hollen's support for the expansion of Social Security will mean little if, when push comes to shove, he supports a deal to cut benefits, as he has said he was open to considering in the past,” Becky Bond, political director at Credo Action, said in a statement to HuffPost. “Van Hollen will have ample opportunity on the campaign trail to speak directly to the voters of Maryland and we hope he takes this opportunity to make a clear and public promise to vote no on any legislative proposal that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits."

Nick Berning of MoveOn.org sounded a similar note. "It is well and good to say that one opposes Social Security benefit cuts in the abstract -- and even that one supports expanding Social Security -- but that position means little if one is willing to support a larger budget package that contains Social Security benefit cuts," Berning said.

In a Democratic primary, being characterized as in favor of cuts to Social Security can be damaging. Van Hollen was asked about his position by a caller during a recent radio interview with WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi and he pushed back hard.

"Anyone that has seen my record knows that I have been fighting not just to protect, but to strengthen Social Security and Medicare my entire career," Van Hollen said. "I led the fight against the changes to Medicare and Social Security proposed in the Ryan Republican budget. I put forward our own budget alternative for Democrats to protect and strengthen Social Security. That’s why I have a 100 percent rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans. I’ve worked closely with the Committee to Preserve and Strengthen Social Security and Medicare. So I’m really glad that this caller asked this question. I’m against cutting Social Security."

This article has been updated to include the comment of Max Richtman.]]>Rahm Emanuel's Housing Agency Sitting On Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars With Massive Waitlisttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-18T08:02:31-04:002015-03-18T08:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
Meanwhile, Chicago's most vulnerable are bearing the brunt. The Chicago Housing Authority's waitlist tops 280,000, with a sizable portion of the city's population hoping for a shot at affordable housing. Ninety-seven percent of the people receiving housing assistance are black or Latino, and 85 percent are women, according to the agency. Some 15,000 families on the list are homeless.

Early in Emanuel's term, the size of the housing agency's reserves began hitting eye-popping levels. Instead of pouring that money into housing, it found other ways to chip away at the pile. In 2011 and 2012, the CHA pumped more than $55 million into its pension fund, nearly 10 times the amount it was required to. But because the amount of federal money the agency was receiving outstripped what it spent by such a large amount, the reserves remained high. So in late 2012, the agency took $185 million and paid down its debts early. Of what remained, millions were pumped into state and local bonds.

Despite the more than $200 million the agency moved from the reserves, the fund was still sitting on at least $440 million at the end of 2013, according to its most recent audited financial report.

In a statement, CHA spokeswoman Wendy Parks noted that federal rules allow the agency to maintain some reserves, which CHA plans to use to finish developing 25,000 new units of housing.

"The increase in reserves was driven by the significant downturn in the real estate market that slowed the expenditure rate of funds," Parks said, adding that the pension contribution and bond purchase will help the agency save money on interest payments or otherwise reduce costs in the future.

The decision to hoard cash while tens of thousands of families are in need of housing appears to be a strange one only if the goal is to find housing for the people the agency is supposed to serve. Yet developers, bar and restaurant owners and other interests who want to see the city of Chicago continue to gentrify have little interest in assisting the poor, black and brown single moms who populate the waitlist. Instead, they'd prefer the women and their children leave the city and find housing somewhere in the distant suburbs or beyond. The trend was underway before Emanuel took office, with the 2010 census finding 182,000 fewer African-Americans living in the city than a decade before, when Chicago began demolishing its public housing.

The agency's massive cash reserves were first noticed by the Chicago Housing Initiative, a coalition of tenants. The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a Chicago-based watchdog group, later produced a report on the stockpile, leading to a spate of news coverage over the summer. But the fate of much of the money the housing agency has stashed away has so far gone unreported. Through a series of open records requests, the Chicago Housing Initiative and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability obtained internal documents revealing that under Emanuel, the CHA has become as much an investment fund as a housing agency.

Several days after providing its initial statement to The Huffington Post, the CHA, through the mayor's office, provided a new statement from CHA CEO Michael Merchant. While reiterating that the massive surplus was the result of the real estate downturn, he added that CHA was going to spend much more of it this coming year.

"CHA's mission is to create strong, sustainable and inclusive communities throughout Chicago and I'm committed to ensuring that low-income families have access to quality housing options. The increase in CHA’s reserves was driven by the significant downturn in the real estate market‎ however ‎this year CHA will invest $240 million ‎to build affordable housing units across the city on top of the $135 million spent last year to develop affordable housing for low-income families and seniors," Merchant said in the statement. "Additionally, last year we issued more than 3,000 housing vouchers and are on track to exceed that in 2015. Through paying down our pension liabilities we've saved more than $2 million and used those savings to directly invest in new and revitalized affordable housing helping families in need increase their potential for long-term economic independence and success."

By the end of 2015, he said, the surplus would be down to $50 million, assuming every penny is spent. That figure doesn't include, however, the $115 million reserve the CHA says the Department of Housing and Urban Development allows for, meaning the cash on hand will be closer to $165 million. Still, if the investment happens as Merchant forecasts, it would represent a dramatic turnaround and a boon for low-income residents in Chicago.

The CHA's long-term goal, set 15 years ago, was to dismantle its high-profile public housing high rises and replace them with 25,000 new units of affordable housing. The city received extra funds to pull off the task and succeeded in knocking down many of the high rises, yet hasn't managed to create all of the 25,000 new units. Each year from 2008 through 2012, the agency issued 13,000 fewer vouchers than it could have, according to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability's analysis.

Emanuel, who faces a runoff against Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, was elected mayor in 2011. In the four years before he took office, the CHA delivered an average of 843 new affordable units each year, either through new construction or rehab. The year Emanuel took office, the number plunged to 424. In 2012 it dropped to 112, and in 2013 it fell again to 88, according to the agency's annual reports. For 2014, the CHA set itself a goal of 40 new units. Meanwhile, it was stockpiling unspent cash.

"It might be that a desire to reduce the number of low-income and minority families in Chicago is what motivates those who control CHA to withhold available housing assistance," said Leah Levinger, the executive director of the Chicago Housing Initiative. "Chicago activists have long questioned whether Emanuel's 'world class city' is contemporary code for rich and white -- a way to name development strategies that have obvious racial impact without all the racial overtones."

The reverse Robin Hood strategy implemented by the CHA is not an aberration when it comes to Emanuel's politics. The deregulation that the agency has exploited was made possible by a law passed in 1996, the same year President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation that capped federal welfare spending and gave states more leeway to administer benefits. It was part of a strategy of triangulation that Emanuel, then a top Clinton aide, pushed as a way to win back working-class white voters and distance the party from traditional liberalism. The pinnacle of the new approach involved "ending welfare as we know it," a move Emanuel aggressively lobbied for as an aide.

The separate housing deregulation, approved by Congress with much less scrutiny, is called "Moving to Work." It allows a small number of city housing agencies to be part of a "demonstration project" that gives them more leeway to shelter the poor. Instead of having to inspect every apartment where a poor person wants to use a housing voucher, for instance, landlords in participating cities can be allowed to vouch for themselves. Crucially, separate federal funding streams for rental assistance, capital improvements and maintenance of existing housing stock can slosh together in an agency's general fund, instead of remaining segregated in separate accounts. And an agency's annual allotment from the federal government is no longer based partly on how many vouchers it distributed the prior year, removing an incentive to help as many people as possible.

While he was a White House aide, Emanuel was a close political ally of Andrew Cuomo, who was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during Clinton's second term. Cuomo and Emanuel share a hard-charging style and a rejection of traditional liberalism in favor of a more business-friendly politics.

When Emanuel left the White House, he became vice chairman of the CHA from 1999-2001. Those were pivotal years for the agency, during which it applied for the special status that allows it the flexibility it is now using to short its would-be clients. The application to deregulate was approved by Emanuel's friend Cuomo. In 2000, Emanuel was also appointed by Clinton to sit on the board of Freddie Mac, stepping down the next year to run for Congress.

While Emanuel was on the CHA board, he was also working for the private equity firm Wasserstein Perella, where he made $18 million in just over two years. In 2002, he was elected to the House, before going on to become Obama's chief of staff and then Chicago mayor.

The Obama administration wants to extend the Moving to Work program to 2028, beyond its planned 2018 sunset. Republicans in Congress have proposed increasing the number of agencies eligible to participate in Moving to Work, which currently stands at 39.

The inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees Moving to Work, reported in 2013 that HUD's oversight of the initiative had been insufficient, and that the department was basically in the dark about whether the deregulation had allowed housing agencies to serve more families.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal D.C. think tank, reported in January that in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, Moving to Work agencies issued 86 percent of the vouchers for which they had received funding, compared to 99.5 percent for agencies that are not part of the program. In 2013, Moving to Work agencies diverted more than $350 million of rental assistance to other purposes or left it unspent, with Chicago accounting for just under a third of the total.

HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said in an email that HUD is working with Chicago to accelerate the pace of spending so more families could get help.

"While CHA enjoys greater flexibility under the Moving to Work Program, we believe it's critical to get this housing assistance in the hands of the very people who need it most," Sullivan said.

On Nov. 20, 2012, according to a CHA document obtained as the result of an open records request and provided to HuffPost, the agency sought authorization from its board to use $185 million from its "existing MTW excess reserves" -- the Moving to Work slush fund -- in order to pay down its debt.

The national average wait time for a Housing Choice Voucher is 12-24 months. In Chicago, the average wait for the rent subsidy is 10 years, according to CHA's 2012 Moving to Work report.

CHA's reserve hit $349 million in 2010 and ticked up to $471 million in 2011, when it began diverting money to its pension fund. In 2012, despite the pension fund payment, it was still at $432 million.

In September 2013, the CHA, its coffers having grown to unmanageable heights, put out a request for an investment portfolio software package to help manage what it said was a $500 million fund, according to one internal document obtained through the records request.

In November 2014, the agency authorized itself to increase its municipal investments by 50 percent, so that it can now make up 7.5 percent of its total, according to another document.

The CHA gets tens of millions each year for apartments it controls but leaves vacant. One of the CHA's larger sites, Lathrop Homes, has a staggering vacancy rate despite the fact that the most recent November 2014 housing lottery saw more than 282,000 applicants. Lathrop Homes has 925 units, but according to longtime resident and co-chairman of the Lathrop Leadership Group, Miguel Suarez, only about 150 of them are occupied today.

"In 2000, CHA froze all leasing in Lathrop with the promise that in 2001, they would start rehabbing," Suarez told HuffPost. "And of course, that never happened."

Suarez said that by 2007, developers still hadn't made improvements, though roughly 45 families were still living on the north end of the site. Shortly after, those remaining families were moved to the south end of the site and CHA "went in and boarded all of the north end up."

Suarez, who has lived in Lathrop Homes for 25 years and is a chairman for the residents' leadership team, said some families left after years of what he characterized as neglect by CHA.

"There are apartments that have mold issues, leakage from the outside, and things of that nature," Suarez said. "When I first moved in, it was totally different: [Lathrop Homes] was fully occupied. Along [North Hoyne Avenue] had a canopy of trees. It was beautiful. Somewhere along the line they got rid of it. Ladies had their flower gardens up front, vegetables in the back. People would even hang their laundry."

"It was a very different thing -- it was a true community," Suarez noted.

But as the surrounding neighborhoods of Bucktown, Lincoln Park and Roscoe Village hit new levels of prosperity, Suarez called the situation with Lathrop Homes "gentrification at its worst."

"It's no secret that today, Lathrop Homes is on some of the most valuable property in the city," Suarez said. "For developers to come in and say, 'We want to make this a revitalized community," well, it already is. They want to move the current residents out to give this property to people with greater means."

Suarez said that knowing the agency is sitting on hundreds of millions of unspent dollars while Lathrop deteriorates is a clear sign of the city's priorities. "Knowing very well that CHA has $400-some-odd million stashed, knowing that money is there, and seeing that Lathrop Homes has had no major rehab done to it, it's evident that the CHA as a whole is not willing to make these units [livable] that could be made available," he said.]]>Bibi Using Congressional Address In New Campaign Ad, Just As Critics Warnedtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-12T13:23:25-04:002015-03-12T14:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
The United States has a policy of not meeting with foreign leaders in advance of elections, so as not to appear to be tilting the electoral balance. But Netanyahu insisted that his motivations had nothing to do with the election, and that the timing of the speech was demanded by the urgency of the Iran nuclear negotiations. There was simply no time to waste.

Already, however, Netanyahu is using his speech as a prop in a campaign commercial back in Israel, where the prime minister is shown basking in the applause of members of Congress who did not boycott his speech.

With five days left until the Israeli elections, Netanyahu launched the 80-second campaign ad above, featuring his controversial address along with footage of rockets being launched.

The ad opens with Netanyahu addressing his main rival, Isaac Herzog, who has vowed to freeze settlement construction near Israel’s pre-1967 borders. “With you, it’s if you did not evacuate [the settlements], you did nothing!” Netanyahu says. He then goes on to list his accomplishments as prime minister, claiming credit for securing additional sanctions against Iran and providing the Israeli military with thousands of interceptors for the Iron Dome during last summer’s Gaza War. Congress approved both the sanctions and the additional funding for the Iron Dome.

"We have accomplished ... and we will continue to accomplish!” Netanyahu triumphantly says at the end of the ad.

Netanyahu's speech sparked controversy in Israel as well, where his political opponents filed a petition to the Israel Broadcasting Authority claiming that the speech to Congress violated election propaganda rules. Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran ruled that the speech would be broadcast domestically on a five-minute delay to allow editors to take out propagandistic content.

Current polls project Netanyahu’s Likud Party to secure three fewer Parliament seats than the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

In previous campaign ads, Netanyahu has attacked Herzog as too weak to lead Israel, warning that he would allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and surrender an unacceptable amount of territory to the Palestinian Authority. Herzog, however, claims that his slight lead in the polls indicates that Israeli voters are fed up with Netanyahu’s security-focused agenda and want a leader who will address domestic economic concerns.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the length of the tape delay on Netanyahu's speech as five seconds; it was five minutes.]]>White House Drug Czar Shares The Best Moment Of His Senate Confirmation Hearingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-11T15:18:17-04:002015-03-12T10:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
But Michael Botticelli, named to become the new director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, used his November hearing to do something that gave him a tremendous amount of satisfaction: introduce his husband, David Wells, to a panel of GOP lawmakers opposed to the very idea of their marriage.

"[T]he best thing about a hearing was that I was even able to introduce him to the Judiciary Committee," Botticelli said of Wells on Friday during his swearing-in ceremony at N Street Village, a recovery community for homeless and low-income women.

Botticelli and Wells have been together for 20 years. They got married in 2009.

"Dave and I had the privilege to be together for 20 years, and he has been with me through all of this," said Botticelli at his ceremony, where Wells sat to his side. "Many times he's wished me well when I leave for work in the morning, saying, 'Go save the world.'"

"But without his love and support, I would never be able to be here, to be with you and to do this work," Wells added. He then addressed Botticelli, saying, "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience and your wisdom and your love."

A former head of the Massachusetts Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, Botticelli represents a break from the traditional drug czar -- exemplified by his choice to be sworn in at N Street Village. He has emphasized prevention and treatment, and has been in recovery for more than 25 years. Botticelli's background is in public health, while each previous drug czar had ties to the military, law enforcement or the evangelical movement.

Michele Leonhart, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, was on hand to witness Botticelli's swearing-in. She told The Huffington Post afterwards that she and her agency have benefited from his new perspective. "I learned to recognize the importance of a holistic strategy that begins with prevention and that includes strong treatment and includes recovery. From the day I met him, I've been so impressed," said Leonhart. She added that she has worked with Botticelli since he was deputy drug czar.

Botticelli has been public about his own journey, but made it clear at his swearing-in that his story should not be a guide to public policy. Instead, he said, policy should be based on evidence and sound science -- a controversial position in the drug policy world.

CORRECTION: This post suggested that Botticelli is the first drug czar to have no prior experience with the military or law enforcement. William Bennett, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, was first to hold the post and came from administrative positions in the humanities.]]>Kentucky Sued In Federal Court Over Drug Treatment Practicestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-10T18:41:40-04:002015-03-11T12:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
The plaintiff, Stephanie Watson, is a nurse with an opiate addiction whose bond conditions forbid her from taking any medications that would be prescribed by her doctor to treat her addiction, such as Suboxone, Methadone or Vivitrol. The lawsuit argues that such a ban is unconstitutional.

The Kentucky policy violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Watson's rights under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, the lawsuit alleges. It names as defendants the state of Kentucky, represented by Attorney General Jack Conway; Lorie Dudgeon, the head of the Administrative Office of the Courts; and the courts themselves.

Mark Wohlander, an attorney for Watson, said the suit initially also took aim at the state's publicly funded treatment system, which in many cases also forbids medically assisted treatment. But Watson is not currently in the state's treatment system and therefore wouldn't have standing to sue, and her doctor is concerned that time is not on their side. Wohlander told HuffPost the legal team wanted to file the suit quickly because Watson's doctor "is convinced she's in a bad risk area."

Relapsing after a period of abstinence is highly dangerous, as the person's tolerance has been reduced and a dose that would not have been fatal previously can turn deadly. Wohlander said the legal team is likely to seek an emergency injunction.

Kentucky's drug treatment system relies heavily on the concept of "abstinence" -- the belief that the only proper way to recover from a substance abuse disorder is to go cold turkey. The medical consensus, meanwhile, recommends a substitution treatment such as the semi-synthetic opiate Suboxone, which takes away the cravings associated with an addiction and reduces the risk of overdose.

"This lawsuit is not very complicated, it is whether or not the Court System has a right to interfere with doctor/patient relationship and prohibit individuals such as Stephanie Watson from receiving competent medical care," the complaint reads. Spokeswoman Leigh Anne Hiatt said the Kentucky courts are reviewing the complaint and not yet able to comment.

Wohlander said a January Huffington Post investigation into abstinence-based treatment in Kentucky catalyzed the lawsuit. "If that doesn't generate more of a response, I don't know what's wrong with this country," he said.

David Suetholz, a Kentucky doctor who prescribes Suboxone to patients, recommends against leaving medicine in the hands of public officials. "There's just a general lack of education when it comes to not only the judges at times, but even the legislators, to understand exactly who a heroin addict is," he said.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, anyone with a serious medical condition that "prohibits her from having a normal functioning life is considered to be disabled," according to the lawsuit. Kentucky's refusal to allow a disabled person to get treatment runs afoul of the ADA, the lawsuit argues.

Karen Thomas, felony drug court judge in Campbell County, Kentucky, told HuffPost for its January investigation that she is following state policy by not allowing medication for addicts. "It sounds terrible, but I don’t give them a choice. This is the structure that I'm comfortable with," she said. (Watch a mini-documentary featuring Thomas and Suetholz above.)

Thomas added that her defendants relapse between 10 and 15 times. A HuffPost analysis found that in Northern Kentucky in 2013, a majority of opioid addicts who died from overdoses lost their lives shortly after leaving jail or after having at least some experience with an abstinence-based program.

The suit seeks no financial damages beyond court costs and attorney fees; instead, it asks that the court require Kentucky to allow Watson and others in the system to receive medical assistance.

Language in this story has been amended to clarify that the lawsuit was filed against the state of Kentucky and not against Attorney General Jack Conway personally.]]>Senator Who Organized Letter To Iran Has Said He Wants To Sabotage Negotiationstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-09T12:00:55-04:002015-03-09T14:59:01-04:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/a controversial letter warning Iran that the U.S. government will not necessarily abide by any agreement Iran strikes with the Obama administration, previously told a conservative audience that the goal of congressional action should be to scuttle talks with Iran. The U.S. should, instead, engage in a policy of "regime change," he argued.

Iran hawks in the House and Senate have long said that their aim is to help the White House strike a tougher deal with Iran. The administration and others, meanwhile, have charged that the hawks' true motivation is to undermine the talks entirely. Cotton, for his part, has made no secret that he wants the talks to fail.

"The end of these negotiations isn't an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so speak," Cotton said in January, speaking at a conservative conference hosted by the advocacy group Heritage Action for America.

Cotton's bald admission would be less interesting had he not been the one to spearhead a Senate effort revealed Monday by Bloomberg View -- an open letter to Iran's leaders signed by 47 Republican senators. The letter explains the workings of the American government to the Iranian regime.

“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system," Cotton's letter reads, before helpfully explaining the separation of powers. "[W]e will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

During his remarks in January, Cotton compared the international negotiations with Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Cotton, who is a young 37, also noted in Monday's letter that while President Barack Obama will leave office in January 2017, "most of us will remain in office well beyond then -- perhaps decades."

]]>Senator Who Cited Snowball In Climate Change Debate Cites Scripture To Back Himself Uptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-06T07:53:54-05:002015-03-06T09:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/object of global ridicule recently when he sauntered onto the floor of the world's greatest deliberative body with what he declared was persuasive evidence climate change was a hoax. In his hands was a snowball.

Inhofe is not some backbench member of the upper chamber, but is in fact the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, with jurisdiction over the allegedly non-existent climate problem. And so it may have been deeply disturbing for a man with so much power over the fate of the planet to display such stunning ignorance.

Indeed, even on his own terms, the snowball doesn't make the point he thinks it does. Climate change produces wild and extreme swings in weather. That Washington, D.C., is experiencing record cold and snowfall is not refutation of climate change, but rather one more data point to add to the pile in support of it.

Those concerned for themselves and future generations should take heart though. Inhofe doesn't misunderstand the science; rather, he doesn't need science as his guide, because God has already assured him there is nothing to fear.

In his recent book on climate change, which he titles The Greatest Hoax, he assures readers that the scientists -- which he refers to as "alarmists" throughout the book -- can be ignored because a greater Authority has already spoken.

"I take my religion seriously," Inhofe writes. "[T]his is what a lot of alarmists forget: God is still up there, and He promised to maintain the seasons and that cold and heat would never cease as long as the earth remains."

For those still skeptical of his climate change skepticism, Inhofe quotes from the source material, "one of my favorite Bible verses," Genesis 8:22:

As long as the earth remains
There will be springtime and harvest
Cold and heat, winter and summer

Inhofe was asked about this particular piece of Scripture during a radio interview when his book came out. The passage, he said, is so conclusive that it's simply outrageous that scientists continue to address the matter.

"The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous," he said.

]]>Court Orders Army To Stop Referring To Chelsea Manning As A Mantag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-05T17:05:57-05:002015-03-06T11:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
The military had been asked by Manning and her attorney to cease the habit, but filed an official opposition to that request. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals has now ruled on the matter, ordering that “future formal papers filed before this court and all future orders and decisions issued by this court shall either be neutral, e.g., Private First Class Manning or appellant, or employ a feminine pronoun.”

Nancy Hollander, Manning’s lead attorney, applauded the court's decision. “This is an important victory for Chelsea, who has been mistreated by the government for years," she said in a statement. "Though only a small step in a long legal fight, my co-counsel, Vincent Ward, Captain Dave Hammond, and I are thrilled that Chelsea will be respected as the woman she is in all legal filings."

Manning shared hundreds of thousands of classified documents with Wikileaks, including some that revealed apparent war crimes, and in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for espionage and other offenses.

In a Feb. 9 brief, Army Capt. Daniel Goldberg argued for the government that Manning had provided no explanation of how her request would "serve the interest of justice."

Goldberg said that "to avoid confusion," the government wished to continue referring to the appeals case by the unwieldy title of "Private First Class (E-3), BRADLEY E. MANNING (nka CHELSEA E. MANNING)." He said the government intended to continue using masculine pronouns "[u]nless directed otherwise by this honorable court."

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, who is representing Manning in her effort to get medical treatment for gender dysphoria, praised Thursday's court decision: “The court rightly recognized that dignifying Chelsea’s womanhood is not the trivial matter that the government attempted to frame it as. This is an important development in Chelsea’s fight for adequate medical care for her gender dysphoria. That fight continues but at least the government can no longer attempt to erase Chelsea’s identity by referring to her as male in every legal filing."

The military is still objecting to her request to grow her hair out, as other female prisoners are allowed to do.

The ruling comes at a time when military leaders may be poised to revisit the ban on transgender troops. Just weeks into his job, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said last month that he's "very open-minded" about transgender military personnel. The White House later endorsed Carter's comments.

An estimated 15,500 transgender people are already serving in the military in secret, according to a 2014 Williams Institute report.]]>Working Families Party Threatens Contest Against Ron Wyden Over Free Trade Dealtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-04T06:00:18-05:002015-03-04T15:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
The WFP typically endorses Democrats, as it did with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in 2014, unless they break too far from the WFP's progressive-populist agenda. Edwards said endorsements ultimately are up to WFP members at the 2016 summer caucus, but trade will be the biggest issue.

President Barack Obama is asking Congress to grant him the authority to fast-track international trade deals without amendments from lawmakers. Proponents of these trade deals say the legislation is needed in order for the president to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Support from Democrats like Wyden, who has been working on fast-track legislation, could prove key to its passage.

But the Obama administration has faced opposition from labor and environmental groups, as well as some Democrats in Congress, who fear fast-track could result in trade deals that undermine existing environmental and consumer-protection regulations.

"Our voters are very interested in trade and that will be a deciding factor in who gets our nomination" for the Senate race, Edwards said. "I would say this would be determinative, but it's a democratic process." She added: "It's hard for me to imagine a situation where Working Families voters find it in their hearts to forgive a vote like that."

Wyden is well aware of the political valence of the issue at home. "In my state, one out of six jobs depends on international trade," he said Tuesday, noting that he was previously chairman of the trade subcommittee. “If you believe deeply in trade, as I do, and you want more of it, it doesn’t make sense to have all this secrecy that makes the public cynical about what’s going on and a bunch of procedures that keep the Congress from the negotiations.”

The WFP is preparing a mailer asking its members to lobby Wyden against fast-tracking the TPP. The trade deal's details are largely secret, but its broad goal is to level regulatory regimes and make it more difficult for sovereign governments to implement laws that could crimp company profits in one country or another.

Wyden has not faced big re-election problems in the past. But according to a poll conducted last month by Public Policy Polling on behalf of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee, half of the Oregon voters polled said they would be less likely to vote for Wyden in 2016 if he joins with Republicans and approves TPP.

Last week, Democracy for America asked its Oregon members whether it should recruit a primary challenger to run against Wyden. The group floated as a potential challenger Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), a trade deal critic who ran for the Democratic Senate nomination against Wyden in the 1990s, but lost.

DeFazio, however, has said he has no interest in challenging Wyden.

Pete Defazio re: left's push for him to primary @RonWyden - &quot;Wyden & I had a primary once a long time ago. We're not gonna have another.&quot;

The Oregon Democrat said his hope for the coming trade deal is modest. "As the ranking Democrat, what I have tried to do is work closely with all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put in place what I call 'trade done right,'" he said. "Trade policy today is in something of a time warp. I think about the agreements that I supported in the Clinton administration. Those were signed into law before people were texting, before there were iPhones. A big part of what you have to do today is kind of bring trade policy up to the times," he said.

“My position has been clear from the start: middle-class families need assurances that the U.S. is fixing a trade system that has too often failed to work for them," Wyden added in a later statement. "My bottom line is that trade deals must contain substantially more transparency, congressional oversight throughout the entire trade process and much stronger enforcement of the rules. Trade needs to better reflect our values, including protecting the environment, human rights, labor and free speech online.”

In 2010, the WFP ran candidate Bruce Cronk against Wyden, but Wyden easily defeated both Cronk and the Republican challenger. In a more contested race, however, a WFP-backed candidate could tilt the balance. In 2000, Ralph Nader, running for president as a Green, won less than 3 percent of the vote, but it was enough to tip the election to George W. Bush in Florida and New Hampshire. Had Al Gore won either state, he'd have become president.

This story has been updated to include comment from Wyden and more detail about a potential challenge to Wyden by DeFazio.

Due to an editing error, this story previously misidentified Cronk as a Republican. He ran in 2010 on the WFP ticket.]]>Fareed Zakaria: 'Netanyahu Has Been Talking About Iran's Imminent Nuclear Program For 25 Years'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-03T12:54:26-05:002015-03-03T14:59:02-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/addressed a joint session of Congress, warning that Iran was "extremely close" to developing nuclear weapons and that if the United States didn't act, "the lives of our children and our grandchildren" would be at risk.

"Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out," he warned. "This is not a slogan. This is not over-dramatization."

Since then, Netanyahu, now serving a second tenure as prime minister, has been consistently warning that Iran is within two or three or five years of obtaining a bomb.

Ahead of Tuesday's speech, CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria noted Netanyahu's long history of alarmism. "It's worth remembering that Netanyahu came to this Congress ... 19 years ago. He made a speech in which he talked about Iran's nuclear weapons. He predicted at the time that the deadline was extremely close. He defined what he meant by that deadline, by how close it was, a couple years earlier to the Israeli parliament, where he said Iran would have nuclear weapons in three to five years. That was 25 years ago. Netanyahu has been talking about Iran's imminent nuclear program for 25 years. Just as a factual matter with respect to my friend, he's just been wrong for 25 years," Zakaria said.

In his latest speech Netanyahu dismissed sanctions, inspections and negotiation as means of mitigating the threat he's been outlining, which effectively leaves a military strike as the only option. "This is a bad deal, a very bad deal. We're better off without it," Netanyahu said of the ongoing negotiations with Iran.

Netanyahu is up for reelection in Israel in two weeks.]]>GOP Launching Last-Ditch Effort This Week To Undo Three Obama Campaign Pledgestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-03-02T12:53:04-05:002015-03-02T13:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R) welcomes -- against the wishes of the White House -- Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress, where the Israeli prime minister will use the forum to challenge President Barack Obama's decision to engage with Iran in nuclear negotiations.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court, on the orders of at least four of the chamber's GOP judges, will hear what is widely being treated as the most absurd case in modern judicial history. In a semantic challenge to the text of the law, Republican activists are arguing that the Affordable Care Act did not intend to provide affordable care.

And on Friday, Republicans will renew their threat to shut down the Department of Homeland Security in order to stop the president's executive immigration action that provided protection from deportation to some 5 million people.

None of these issues, of course, are new to the national conversation. In fact, all three played prominent roles in both of the past two presidential elections, with the two parties taking starkly different positions. They arose again in 2010 and 2014 during midterm elections. The 2010 campaign was decided largely on the bad economy and anger at Obamacare, coupled with the traditionally low Democratic turnout in an off year. In 2014, the White House held its immigration order until after the election, in a futile attempt to hang on to some red state Senate seats.

As early as the Democratic presidential primary, then-Senator Obama said that if elected, he would be willing to meet with the Iranian regime without preconditions. He was pilloried by Republicans and his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as "irresponsible and frankly naive," yet he stood by the position. Obama's stance signaled his strong preference for diplomacy over military confrontation. He brought this stance to the 2012 election as well, in contrast to Republican Mitt Romney's much more aggressive approach.

The issue of immigration reform was also central to both campaigns, with Romney's counter -- the suggestion that undocumented immigrants "self deport" -- helping drive the Latino vote toward Obama in a decisive fashion. The two parties were so far apart on the issue that when Rick Perry told a debate audience that it was heartless to refuse an education to a child because his parents brought him to the country illegally, it was considered a major gaffe that he later walked back.

The GOP base is so powerfully opposed to immigration reform that Boehner's speakership has been threatened in the DHS showdown.

And, of course, Obamacare has not gone unaddressed by the electorate. Obama pledged to reform health care during the 2008 campaign, and Romney made opposition to it a centerpiece of his case against the president.

]]>Senate Passes DHS Funding As House GOP Kicks Can Down The Roadtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-02-27T11:54:26-05:002015-02-27T14:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
But the shutdown has not been averted quite yet. At the same time as the Senate approved its bill, House Republicans proceeded with a bill that would fund DHS for three weeks, so they can continue to push the Senate to cooperate with their efforts to gut President Barack Obama's immigration policies as part of a longer-term bill for the department. The Senate bill, which passed 68 to 31, does not have measures related to immigration.

Some members of Congress -- including Republicans -- said the three-week continuing resolution would be a punt, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's dead on arrival if it’s the only way to avoid a shutdown. A procedural vote passed Friday morning that will allow the continuing resolution to move forward.

House GOP leadership sources said Friday they were confident they had enough Republican votes to pass a three-week DHS funding extension, and expected the Senate to roll over and agree to the stopgap measure. Wavering members were convinced to back the vote, one said, by the growing realization that House Republicans would shoulder the full blame for the shutdown.

The three-week continuing resolution would likely pass the Senate. Sen. John Thune (R-N.D.) told reporters they would be willing to support a short-term bill if that was the only alternative, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-ranking Democrat, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday that Democrats would back the measure.

"If that's the only choice we're given, as it looks like now, we'll support it, but very reluctantly," he confirmed to reporters at a press conference.

The issue of going to conference on the DHS funding bill is more fraught. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said his caucus will not allow for a conference on the DHS bill, which House Republicans are seeking to compromise on funding the department while also restricting Obama's immigration measures. The immigration order, Democrats say, is not up for discussion.

Moments earlier, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) huddled on the House floor with moderate Republicans, sketching out the way forward. There had been some confusion over the order of the votes, with the rank-and-file having been told previously they could vote for the funding before voting to go to conference, but the votes will now take place in reverse order. The GOP moderates want to oppose the conference bill but approve the funding, while many tea party Republicans want to reject the funding if the conference bill is not also included. House Democrats have pledged not to assist Republicans in their stopgap effort, meaning Boehner must bridge the divide in his own conference.

The Senate also voted on whether to move forward with a measure from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to halt Obama's 2014 executive actions on immigration, which Democrats agreed not to block in the future as long as DHS had been fully funded first. The motion failed to get the 60 votes it needed to go ahead, with a tally of 57-42.

Collins' bill would have stopped two policies that have been temporarily halted in the courts: the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program and an expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The programs are aimed at allowing parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents or undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to remain in the U.S. with three years' work authorization.

House Republicans voted as part of a DHS funding bill last month to kill not only those programs, but also to end DACA entirely and restrict other Obama administration immigration programs. Conservatives in the lower chamber who oppose any clean funding measure were dismayed that they were staring down the barrel of yet another capitulation on the part of Republican leaders.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the most vocal critics of immigration reform, blamed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for giving up the GOP's leverage by offering to fund DHS with no strings attached.

"I would have liked to see Mitch McConnell fight a lot harder," King said. "He tipped over his king in a surprise move. He didn't make any moves for a long time, he waited until they looked at the calendar and strategically decided to jam the House."

UPDATE: 1:50 p.m. -- White House press secretary Josh Earnest said later Friday that although Obama would prefer a full-year DHS funding bill, he would approve a three-week continuing resolution.

"If the president is faced with the choice between a short-term extension and shutting down the Department of Homeland Security, he will sign the short-term extension," Earnest said in a press briefing. ]]>Russ Feingold Could Rejoin The Senate In 2016tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-02-26T14:33:07-05:002015-02-26T16:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/
The progressive Wisconsin Democrat was wiped out of the Senate in the tea party wave of 2010, but since then, many supporters have been keeping their fingers crossed that he'd run again -- in a presidential election year likely to be more favorable to Democrats.

Feingold will step down in March from his position as the State Department's special envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, the sources indicated, and can't make an announcement before that.

But he toyed with reporters on Tuesday during an event at the U.S. Institute of Peace by referring to his aide, Mary Irvine, as his "once, current and, I hope, future chief of staff."

A source close to Feingold confirmed that the former senator has been having conversations with a number of supporters, but refused to comment further on his plans. "After Russ steps down from the State Department in March," the source said, "there will of course be a transition period before any decision is announced. The enthusiasm expressed for Russ over the past week has been truly incredible."

Feingold is a longtime opponent of special interests' influence on campaigns and lawmaking. Along with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), he co-authored landmark campaign finance legislation that was later gutted by the Supreme Court in its Citizens United decision. After his 2010 loss, Feingold started Progressives United, a group dedicated to combating corporate influence in politics.

The Wisconsin Democrat also became known for staking out sometimes lonely positions on national security. In 2001, Feingold was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the federal government's surveillance powers. He was also one of the 23 senators who voted against the war in Iraq.

Although Feingold has not yet publicly commented on whether he will be running -- he is at the State Department and prohibited from doing so -- Republicans are already targeting him and trying to portray him as too liberal for Wisconsin.

"Liberal Russ Feingold is a career politician whose time with the State Department was just a placeholder until he could run for political office again," said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Andrea Bozek in a press release Tuesday. "Unlike Ron Johnson who has spent his career creating jobs in the Fox Valley, Feingold has spent over two decades in politics and has gone from one taxpayer-funded job to the next. Wisconsin families rejected his tax-and-spend ways once and they will do it again if necessary."

The Wisconsin Republican Party has made similar attacks, and even started a site called RadicalRussFeingold.com.

"Russ Feingold is too radical for the U.S. Senate, and Wisconsin voters should be wary of his voting record of supporting one disastrous policy after another,” said Joe Fadness, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, in a statement to HuffPost. "His desperate attempt to return to power is nothing more than a repackaged effort to push failed policies that are wrong for Wisconsin."

A 2014 poll by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling group indicated that Feingold would lead Johnson, 47 to 41, in a potential rematch.

"Johnson has done very little to grow his support," said a longtime Wisconsin Democratic strategist who requested anonymity in order to speak openly. "He was obviously elected in an off-year election that was a Republican wave election and he hasn't done the sort of things that you would expect from someone to run in a presidential year election. He really comes at this race from a place where he hasn't really moved beyond the tea party support that largely helped elect him in 2010."

Wisconsin Democrats say they expect Feingold to easily win the Democratic nomination -- with a strong chance that he won't have any challengers at all -- since he remains a popular figure with party activists in the state. Many wanted him to run against Gov. Scott Walker (R) in the 2012 recall election, and were disappointed when he chose not to.

"This Senate race in Wisconsin is shaping up to be the number one targeted pickup of the cycle for Democrats, and all eyes are on Feingold to see if he can put together a race that builds not only on his past strengths, but also address some of the challenges from the 2010 loss," said Patrick Guarasci, a Democratic strategist in Wisconsin.

The Hill recently reported that Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Jon Tester (Mont.) said that he had talked to Feingold about a possible run. Tester added he believed the Wisconsin Democrat had learned from some of his 2010 missteps, when he ran was what widely acknowledged as a brutally anemic campaign.

"The conversation [with Feingold] was ‘It's a new day now,'" Tester said. "In 2010, Citizens United started about two-thirds of the way through on that race, I believe it was in June on a November election. It's a different world now. ... Russ is a good guy and if Russ chooses to [run] he'd be a formidable candidate. I think he learned from the last election."

This story has been updated to include further detail about Republicans' criticism of Feingold.

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]]>The Inside Story Of How Citizens United Has Changed Washington Lawmakingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2015-02-26T05:00:18-05:002015-02-26T21:59:01-05:00Ryan Grimhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/

When Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote to gut a century of campaign finance law, he assured the public that the unlimited corporate spending he was ushering in would “not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Because those authorized to give and spend unlimited amounts were legally required to remain independent of the politicians themselves, Kennedy reasoned, there was no cause for concern.

Just five years later, in a development that may be surprising only to Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision is reshaping how, how much and to whom money flows in Washington.

How the flood of money released by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has changed elections has been the subject of much discussion, but the decision’s role in allowing that same money to soak the legislative process has largely gone unreported. According to an extensive review of public documents held by the FEC, the U.S. Senate and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as interviews with lobbyists and policymakers, Kennedy's allegedly independent spending has become increasingly intertwined with lobbying and legislation -- the precise appearance of corruption campaign finance laws were meant to curb.

Politically active nonprofits, known as "dark money" groups for their ability to shield the identity of donors, and super PACs, which take unlimited sums of money but must disclose donors, have become dominated by lobbyists and other political operatives with close ties to leaders in Congress. Meanwhile, businesses with issues before Congress are pumping increasingly more money into the lobbyist-connected organizations.

The Supreme Court initially established a narrow definition of corruption in the 1970s, but Citizens United used it to blow open the gates that had been holding back corporate money. The 2010 decision came as the U.S. legislative system had evolved into a near parliamentary system of party-line voting and expansive party networks extending seamlessly from the Capitol to party headquarters to lobbying firms to outside political groups. Most top congressional legislators now have "leadership teams" -- informal but internally recognized groups of aides-turned-lobbyists who help raise funds.

To the lobbyists working in the system he helped create, Kennedy’s vision of political spending is unrecognizable. "I think Justice Kennedy's view on this was naive at best," one lobbyist told The Huffington Post, reflecting a rare bipartisan consensus. "People are going to do what's allowed under the law."

The Supreme Court majority’s casual dismissal of the possibility that the Citizens United ruling could lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption was necessary from a judicial perspective. Citizens United and a subsequent lower court ruling essentially hold that the First Amendment prevents the government from restricting political spending independent of the candidates and parties. Yet the courts had long recognized Congress’ authority to regulate the financing of campaigns and the lobbying process in order to maintain the citizens’ trust in a democratic government. Where the choice had been between the sanctity of elections on the one hand and an unfettered interpretation of the First Amendment on the other, the courts chose to protect elections -- because without a trusted government, there is no First Amendment to speak of.

Kennedy and the other four justices, therefore, had to insist that independent political spending could not lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption -- no threat of corruption meant no congressional authority to regulate that spending.

It is difficult, however, to look closely at the way laws are being made today without acknowledging at least an appearance of corruption. Congressional aides to whom HuffPost spoke all said that their own members of Congress were certainly not influenced in an untoward way by the corporate funds pumped into efforts to re-elect them, but that it was easy to see why the public might assume that to be the case. Five years later, the judicial logic of Citizens United has unraveled.

Political advisers closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) serve as both operatives on their behalf and lobbyists for corporate clients with business before Congress. The clients are encouraged to give generously to super PACs associated with the respective lawmakers, according to lobbyists familiar with the widespread strategy.

Trevor Potter, one of the top election lawyers in the country whose clients include Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and comedian Stephen Colbert, warns that this arrangement creates exactly the appearance of corruption that courts have used to justify campaign finance limits.

“It does make a significant difference to have lobbyists involved because then you have the very lobbyists who seek official action from the members being the conduits to the money,” Potter said. “It makes them valuable to their clients because they have a good relationship with the member, and they have a tight relationship with the member because they have access to the money from their clients.”

They're making use of the opportunity. A connected super PAC and nonprofit manned by lobbyists tied to Boehner have collectively received millions from interests in the insurance, drug, energy and other industries. Big-money groups associated with McConnell have been funded by coal companies, insurers and hospitals. Mining and gambling businesses have given directly to the super PAC associated with Reid, which is staffed by two Reid confidantes, one of whom advises the lobby shop that represents those companies while she also prepares to run the senator's 2016 re-election bid. All these companies have hired lobbyists who are connected to those same lawmakers as well as to the big-money groups and who are also working on issues over which Congress has much sway. The groups they fund have spent big to put and keep Boehner, McConnell and Reid in the driver’s seat.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic super lobbyist with the Podesta Group, told HuffPost that he has encouraged his corporate clients to give to super PACs and dark money nonprofits. “It’s unfortunate that we have the decision Citizens United, but as long as that’s the law of the land, then Democrats and Republicans are both active in these kinds of endeavors,” he said.

Speaker John Boehner has close ties to the American Action Network, a dark money nonprofit, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC. These groups raise funds from clients of lobbyists looking to increase their own influence. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. Through these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.

The two outside groups in the middle of Boehner’s web are the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC operating under AAN’s umbrella.

The board of directors of AAN and Congressional Leadership Fund is lined with lobbyists and influencers including Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck strategic adviser Barry Jackson, a former chief of staff to Boehner who left his office in 2012. Brownstein’s profile of Jackson, who is not registered to lobby, focuses heavily on his congressional and executive branch connections and experience without mention of any particular policy expertise.

Also, Brownstein Hyatt employed former Boehner aide Marc Lampkin as managing director of its Washington lobbying office. His firm bio declares him to be a proud member of “Team Boehner," and he is widely seen as one of the speaker's closest advisers. He is also a lobbyist for a number of interests that contribute to super PACs and nonprofits that help Republicans in elections.

The Apollo Education Group, which owns and operates the for-profit University of Phoenix, has donated $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund since 2012 while employing Lampkin to lobby on behalf of such schools. Boehner and his House Republicans have long been staunch supporters of for-profit universities. In recent years, they have fought back against federal regulations to rein in that industry, which relies hugely on its students receiving federal grants and taxpayer-backed loans while it fails to graduate those same students.

The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories, another Lampkin client, gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund in 2012. Boehner recently inaugurated a new Abbott factory in his congressional district while opposing changes to tax laws that allowed Abbott to purchase an overseas competitor in 2014 and turn itself into a multinational corporation to avoid U.S. tax payments (the tactic, known as an inversion, has come under increasing scrutiny).

Lampkin and another former Boehner aide, Sam Geduldig, have both registered to lobby for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade group for large insurance companies that has given $185,000 to outside groups supporting Republicans since 2012. PCI’s contributions include $25,000 each to the Congressional Leadership Fund and AAN.

The insurers group also pumped funds into the dark money network run by Steven Law, a member of McConnell’s inner circle and a former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. PCI gave $75,000 to Crossroads GPS and $25,000 to the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Both groups are run by Law and spent millions to re-elect McConnell in 2014. PCI also put money into super PACs supporting two Republicans first elected to the Senate this past November: Joni Ernst of Iowa and David Perdue of Georgia. Their seats were among the handful McConnell needed his party to win in order for him to take the Senate’s top spot.

"PCI participates in the political process like many others and supports pro business and pro property & casualty organizations,” Marguerite Tortorello, PCI's senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

Shortly after the 2014 election, the two top priorities of the insurers group and the broader insurance industry were rolled into one: A provision to roll back capital standards placed on insurance companies by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was attached to the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Although that bill stalled last year, the new Congress in January passed a terrorism insurance reauthorization with the capital standards rollback attached -- with bipartisan support. An amendment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to strip the rollback measure failed.

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

In April 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration. This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the announcement, Congress passed legislation to ease the sequester cuts at the FAA.

Lobbying players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders. Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and $40,000 to Defending Main Street SuperPAC, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.

“You can’t have good policy without good candidates and legislation, which is why it’s important to the 2 million people we fly every day and the nearly 600,000 people we employ that we be involved,” Airlines for America spokesman Vaughn Jennings said in a statement.

The lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.

“You’ve got to be part of the political process, and contributions and political support are part of the political process,” Calio told Politico in 2010. “When you have people who consistently support you on policy issues, they expect you to be part of their political life support system. It’s just that simple.”

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, also gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $150,000 to Defending Main Street after Congress ended the sequester-related furloughs. Those contributions were out of the ordinary for the union, which had been a major supporter of Democrats alone. It has given $3.9 million to super PACs backing Democrats.

Calio is deeply enmeshed in the political party machinery, and his group rewards congressional action by making huge contributions to outside groups that directly support lawmakers. What he does not have is a direct relationship with an outside spending group. Other major lobbyists, including heads of trade associations, do.

Take Mike Duncan, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009. Following the Citizens United decision, he joined with Karl Rove and other GOP operatives to form the super PAC American Crossroads and the nonprofit Crossroads GPS. He still sits on the board of American Crossroads.

But Duncan is not just a party operative. In 2012, he became head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a major Washington lobbying arm of the coal and railroad industry. The coalition was in the midst of a massive advertising and pressure campaign in Washington as the Obama administration pushed for new regulations on coal-fired power plants to reduce their pollution.

To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up Boehner’s former aide Lampkin to lobby in 2013.

Coal industry companies and executives on the board of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have contributed more than $10 million to Republican outside groups. Joe Craft and his company Alliance Resource Partners have provided most of this money with contributions totaling nearly $9.4 million. Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy and Murray Energy have also chipped in. Additionally, Matthew Rose, the CEO of Burlington North Santa Fe and a member of the coal coalition’s board, gave $25,000 to the super PAC supporting McConnell in 2014. (This is all aside from the hundreds of millions in political spending by the Koch brothers, fossil fuel magnates.)

Republicans have, in turn, become increasingly vocal in their support for the coal industry and their opposition to any rule, regulation or idea -- including belief in climate change driven by human action -- that could harm the industry.

A spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.

The pro-Boehner AAN, the nonprofit parent of the Congressional Leadership Fund, is a hotbed of lobbyist activity. The board currently boasts four registered lobbyists -- former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), former Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.), and former RNC official Maria Cino -- and two other employees of lobbying firms -- former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno and former Boehner aide Barry Jackson.

Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist C. Boyden Gray and former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.

“We’re proud to have a distinguished board from business executives to policy leaders to former elected officials -- they’ve been successful in all walks of life and they’re critical to our success,” Dan Conston, spokesman for both AAN and the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an email. “Do they fundraise for us? Of course. Do they uphold their fiduciary responsibility to us as board members? Of course.”

Crossroads GPS, like its sister super PAC, also maintains connections to K Street through its board. Crossroads board member Sally Vastola, a former staffer for Rep. Reynolds, decamped with her old boss to the law and lobbying firm of Nixon Peabody, where she lobbies for pharmaceutical companies and the student loan giant Sallie Mae.

"Both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have separate and independent boards whose members do not fundraise for either organization and have a range of work outside their board positions," said Paul Lindsay, communications director for the Crossroads duo.

Lobbyists straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the Citizens United decision.

The top lobbyist donor to these groups is Boyden Gray, a top-shelf GOP fundraiser and former AAN board member, whose contributions total $390,000. Gray made contributions to such super PACs as American Crossroads, Freedom PAC and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership. According to lobbyist contribution disclosures, he also gave to dark money groups: $50,000 to Crossroads GPS and $15,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth as it worked incredibly closely with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to help him survive a recall election.

"The vast majority of our donors give on the basis of broad philosophical conviction," said Crossroads' Lindsay. "The fact that some have various policy interests should come as no surprise, but those interests have no effect on our activities."

The full record of lobbyists and their clients funding outside groups connected to party leadership is almost certainly obscured by the fact that many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors. Dark money nonprofits like AAN, Crossroads GPS and the Democratic Party group Patriot Majority USA spend huge sums on elections and on attack ads masquerading as issue advocacy. Few of their donors have materialized, but what little has leaked indicates that contributions from clients of party-linked lobbyists and trade associations actively lobbying Congress are common.

AAN has sucked in millions from Washington-based corporate trade groups and corporations with major interests in Congress. Those donations include $6 million from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3.3 million from pharmaceutical giant Aetna. The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care chipped in $250,000. Additional funds came from America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America and the top lobbyist for Health Care Service Corporation.

The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care and its affiliated group, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, have given $2.9 million to outside groups as part of their lobbying campaign to restore Medicare reimbursements for home and hospice care that were cut by the Affordable Care Act. The two groups have hired top lobbyists to help direct their efforts, including Democrat Tony Podesta and Republican Haley Barbour.

Barbour, a former two-term governor of Mississippi and a onetime RNC chairman, is the personification of this cross-pollinating age. He is a powerhouse lobbyist running the BGR Group who is also an adviser to political campaigns and a past fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. One client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, gave $500,000 to Crossroads GPS in 2012.

In 2014, Barbour joined hands with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to beat back a tea party primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Cochran had attracted the ire of tea party activists for his support of immigration reform and his long history of earmarking funds to build projects in his impoverished state. To save the six-term senator’s seat, Barbour helped launch the super PAC Mississippi Conservatives with the backing of the chamber and Republican Senate leadership. He chipped in $35,000 of his own money, and Crest Investment Company, one of his clients, sent an additional $50,000. The chamber gave $100,000 to the super PAC and directly spent another $1.2 million to help re-elect Cochran.

Cochran’s eventual victory in a run-off election was a triumphant moment for Barbour, the chamber and Republican leadership. They had beaten back a potential stumbling block to capturing the Senate majority.

The chamber didn’t just support an establishment Republican in Mississippi last year. The larger anti-tea party campaign was chiefly its work. The chamber ran hard against tea party candidates in Kentucky and North Carolina while scaring off potential challengers in West Virginia before they could materialize. In Iowa and Colorado, it found common ground on candidates with national tea party groups.

Of course, beyond being a funder of election ads, the Chamber of Commerce is also the nation’s largest business lobby, generously funded by corporations across America. It employs dozens of Washington lobbyists, including top former staffers for McConnell. And it does not shy away from the implication that its campaign spending is part of its lobbying operation.

"Our deal is to have a political program so that there is a hammer, and there is a consequence, and there is leverage and it's aggressive," Rob Engstrom, the chamber’s national political director, told CNN in 2014.

Once Republicans won the majority in the Senate, they immediately talked up the chamber’s priorities, from the Keystone XL pipeline to tax reform and pro-corporate trade policies. Newly elected Republican senators backed by the chamber announced their support for immigration reform, which the chamber strongly favors, and increased transportation and infrastructure spending, a major chamber wish opposed by the GOP’s tea party wing.

As noted, a former general counsel for the Chamber of Commerce and McConnell insider, Law, now runs American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. For his own re-election, the new Senate majority leader is tightly bound to the Crossroads duo and two state groups, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Former McConnell aide Scott Jennings operates as the public face of the latter two organizations, which are also headed by Law.

Soon after the 2014 victory, McConnell and Law announced the creation of yet another super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which will raise funds to maintain the new GOP majority. The formation of the group echoes the big-money strategy used by now-Minority Leader Reid to keep Senate Democrats in power for the previous four years.

Lobbyists and their clients have poured money into a super PAC and nonprofit run by former aides of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as they seek legislative action from his office. (Photo: Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)

Indeed, Democrats have been tapping the post-Citizens United nexus of super PACs, former leadership aides and lobbying groups, too. Reid’s network is well-connected.

Rebecca Lambe, the adviser most closely associated with Reid’s re-election in 2010 and his coming bid in 2016, is employed by the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates -- as is former senior Reid aide, Kai Anderson. Lambe began work at Cassidy in early 2011. She is also the treasurer of Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aimed at electing Senate Democrats. The latter group was founded in 2011 by Lambe and Susan McCue, Reid’s former chief of staff and longtime confidante. McCue, who is president of Senate Majority PAC, is also connected to Patriot Majority USA, a dark money group with a similar aim.

Since the Citizens United decision in January 2010, lobbyists at and clients of Cassidy & Associates have given $675,000 to Senate Majority PAC and affiliated groups. Another $1.66 million has come from those who attended super PAC strategy sessions hosted by Lambe, including lobbyists and clients of other lobbyists, some of whom are other former Reid aides.

Lambe’s connection to Reid is an asset to Cassidy, and the firm makes no bones about it. Her Cassidy website bio is rich with details about her ongoing connections to Reid, and her relationship with the top Senate Democrat has been a selling point in meetings with prospective clients. At one pitch meeting in May 2013, for instance, Lambe was described as both a senior Cassidy staffer and Reid’s top political strategist, according to a source at the meeting.

It’s common for lobbyists to reference their ties to powerful politicians earned through past service, but ongoing service is unusual. A second source in the room recalled Lambe being mentioned as a Cassidy staffer who would be available to the prospective client, but couldn’t recall how she was specifically identified with regard to Reid. “Of course, her reputation precedes her,” the second source said.

In 2012, her company bio (accessed through the Internet Archive) said, “Lambe is one of the nation’s top political strategists. … Building on the highly successful model in Nevada, Lambe recently led the effort to create Majority PAC [now Senate Majority PAC], an unprecedented, independent effort to protect the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Senate in 2012. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor and Strategist to the newly formed SuperPAC.”

Tom Alexander, a spokesman for Cassidy, said that “there is nothing unusual about promoting the background and experience of your team. Rebecca does not lobby for us; rather, we periodically seek her counsel as we develop effective strategies for our clients.”

Lambe has been a liaison to K Street Democrats on Senate Majority PAC’s plans and fundraising needs. She led a presentation in June 2013 about the super PAC before some of the top Democratic lobbyists and lawmakers in Washington. Attendees included Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and lobbyists from firms whose clients gave to the super PAC as well as to Patriot Majority USA.

“She’s a very smart political operative, and I would support anything that she does,” Podesta, another attendee, said of Lambe. That event, he said, was intended “to encourage [the lobbyists] to contribute and to encourage them to encourage others to contribute.”

Lambe is also closely involved with what’s known as the Clean Energy Project. McCue, the Senate Majority PAC co-founder, sits on the project's board, and Cassidy & Associates is a top sponsor. Lambe herself helps organize its annual National Clean Energy Summit, held in Las Vegas.

The summit in his home state serves as a venue for Reid to showcase the alternative energy industry in Nevada and provides space for energy and vehicle companies to promote their products. One of the repeat sponsors of the summit is Cassidy client and casino operator MGM Resorts International, which is also a heavy donor to Senate Majority PAC.

The Cassidy firm and its clients generally have been an oft-tapped resource for Reid and Senate Majority PAC. In 2012, Gerald Cassidy, the firm’s founder, gave $50,000 to the super PAC. (Cassidy, who is officially retired from the firm, is known as the father of the earmark.) Michael Kowalski, then CEO of Cassidy client Tiffany & Co., gave $125,000 in the 2012 elections and another $100,000 in 2014. In 2010, MGM Resorts gave $300,000 to Patriot Majority, then a super PAC, supporting Reid’s re-election. Newmont Mining Corporation put $100,000 into Senate Majority PAC in 2012 and hired Cassidy the next year.

Alexander, spokesman for Cassidy & Associates, said the firm does not comment on contributions made or solicited by its employees and would not say whether the firm asked clients to give to super PACs.

The $225,000 contributed by Kowalski came as Tiffany & Co. was engaged in a lobbying campaign, alongside a coalition of environmental and fiscal watchdog groups, to update a key federal mining law from 1872. The company employed former Reid aide Anderson to lobby on its behalf.

After Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in 2006, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and other congressmen pushed a bill to require mining companies operating on public lands to pay royalties to the government and to abide by stricter environmental regulations. Rahall told USA Today in 2007 that everyone in the House would be for reform, but that Reid, then the Senate majority leader, posed an obstacle.

“Well, obviously, the man in control over there is the gentleman from the largest gold-producing state,” Rahall said. Nevada is one of the world’s top producers of gold, and Reid, whose father was a gold miner, is an ardent supporter of and regular opponent of new regulation on the industry.

A mining reform bill passed the House in 2008 but went nowhere in the Senate, where Reid opposed the level of royalties, among other provisions. No such bill has passed either chamber since. Reid never stated outright that he was against the mining reform, though he said it must be crafted appropriately to satisfy the industry and protect mining jobs.

The continued debate has helped elicit further contributions from both the mining industry and consumer-facing companies like Tiffany, which are hoping to avoid customer backlash over ties between their products and polluting mines. Environmental groups have already launched campaigns targeting the sale of jewelry using materials from mines with poor pollution records.

Tiffany’s reform stance, in particular, stems from its past failure to get in front of consumer fury over the sale of “blood diamonds” -- diamonds sourced from war-torn African countries -- in the 2000s. CEO Kowalski told the Las Vegas Sun in 2007 that his company’s involvement in the issue “has never been ulterior or anything more than corporate self-interest.”

As Tiffany became more involved in the issue, Kowalski’s donations increased. Prior to 2007, he had made few contributions. But since 2008 he has given more than $160,000 to Democratic Party candidates and party committees, including $7,200 to Reid’s 2010 campaign. This was on top of the $225,000 to Senate Majority PAC.

Tiffany has been unable to secure a legislative win despite its heavy giving. Sometimes lobbyists squeeze corporations for money knowing their goal will remain elusive.

Anderson, the former Reid aide-turned-Cassidy staffer, also represents Newmont Mining, one of the top American gold mining companies operating in Nevada, but that lobbying has a different focus: federal efforts to preserve the greater sage grouse. The company fears that protections for the imperiled bird under the Endangered Species Act could interfere with its mining operations. The Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to make a decision on whether to list the bird by September 2015.

Cassidy was hired in July 2013, as the Bureau of Land Management was evaluating threats to sage grouse habitat in Nevada. The BLM analysis looked like it might jeopardize a new gold mine that Newmont had proposed.

Reid worked with Nevada’s junior senator, Republican Dean Heller, and in December of that year they offered draft legislation that would allow the state to take the lead on protecting the greater sage grouse. Their proposal would have designated certain areas for the birds, preventing an Endangered Species Act listing and leaving other areas open to development by mining operators like Newmont. That bill never passed, but language barring the Interior Department from moving forward on the greater sage grouse was part of the Reid-supported spending package in December 2014.

Anderson is also registered to lobby for MGM Resorts, one of the largest casino operators in the world. Reid is an unabashed champion of his state’s gaming industry and, as Reid defenders note, would go to bat for it whether contributions were made or not.

Still, those contributions have been made. In 2010, MGM Resorts pumped $300,000 into the Patriot Majority super PAC to help Reid defeat Republican challenger Sharron Angle. After his re-election, Reid attempted to attach language to a must-pass tax bill to open the door to online gambling in the United States. This measure was carefully tailored to provide the very first online gambling licenses to companies like MGM and Harrah’s Entertainment (now Caesar’s Entertainment), which also gave to Patriot Majority. (Reid now opposes Internet gaming -- a switch that, some speculate, is aimed at deterring casino magnate Sheldon Adelson from spending money to defeat the senator in 2016.)

Reid also came to MGM Resorts’ aid when a major development project with Dubai World faced financing problems during the global economic crisis. Reid helped persuade bankers to provide funding. He has said he considers the salvaging of the project, and the 22,000 Nevada jobs connected to it, among his most significant home state achievements.

While Cassidy & Associates offers the strongest linkage between Reid’s office, Senate Majority PAC and lobbying clients seeking favors on Capitol Hill, the firm is not the only K Street denizen with ties to the super PAC. Many of the lobbyists who attended the 2013 presentation by Lambe had or would make five-figure contributions to the super PAC. In some cases, the clients of those lobbyists gave, too.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a Podesta Group client, gave $100,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2014. Another Podesta client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (then known as Home Health Advocacy Coalition), gave $125,000 in 2014.

These lobbyists’ clients also gave to Patriot Majority USA, the related dark money group. According to tax returns, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare and yet another Podesta client, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, gave a combined $1.5 million to the nonprofit from 2011 to 2012.

“I’m a supporter of both groups and urge people to support both groups,” said Podesta, who personally contributed $50,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2012.

Before there was a Senate Majority PAC, there was another Democratic nonprofit acting as a key node in the flow of money from lobbying interests to help elect helpful politicians. Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, and its later iterations, provides what may be the clearest example of how outside spending groups are used by lobbyists to curry favor with leaders in Congress.

The story begins back when Congress debated and passed the Affordable Care Act. An immense legislative accomplishment for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, the law was also the subject of a massive, still-ongoing lobbying campaign. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat the reform bill, much of it provided by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying association for health insurers. The chamber also spent millions more trying to defeat reform proponents in the 2010 election.

The preeminent interest group spreading money around Washington on health care reform, however, was the pharmaceutical industry. Under the stewardship of former Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) -- whose leap from writing the Medicare prescription drug law to lobbying on K Street led to an eponymous rules change in Congress -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America worked behind the scenes with the White House and then-Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to advance the legislation. PhRMA’s chief requirements: that the new law not reverse the ban on re-importing drugs and not grant authority to Medicare, Medicaid or any new entity to negotiate lower drug prices.

In return for abandoning those two longstanding Democratic Party goals, Democrats would get PhRMA’s support, which included directing millions of dollars to outside nonprofits to pay for electoral and advocacy ads. Along with other industry groups like the Federation of American Hospitals and reform proponents like Families USA, PhRMA launched Americans for Stable Quality Care in 2009. The new dark-money nonprofit raised and spent $46 million that year to fund a barrage of ads backing Obama’s health bill.

And then, two months before the law passed in March 2010, the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision, allowing corporations to fund electoral efforts through nonprofits like Americans for Stable Quality Care. The group quickly changed its name to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund and transformed into an overtly political operation.

PhRMA pumped $2.5 million into that group in 2010 to help pay for ads supporting the election of Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Their seats were vital to maintaining the Democratic majority in the Senate.

The pharmaceutical lobby also put $2 million into another Democratic nonprofit called America’s Families First, which operated as a donor fund and redistributed what it raised. It gave $2.3 million to the get-out-the-vote group America Votes, $1.5 million to Democratic super PACs, $461,000 to Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and $370,000 to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, among others. All of these named groups were active in supporting Democrats in the 2010 election.

Finally, PhRMA boosted Sen. Baucus, the main congressional architect of health care reform, by sending $500,000 to an obscure group called Montana Growth. In 2013, the little known group funneled $400,000 of that money over to the Stronger Montana Fund and Montana Hunters & Anglers Action, both Democratic dark-money nonprofits, to support a possible re-election campaign by Baucus.

The Stronger Montana Fund put $275,000 into a pro-Baucus issue ad early in 2013, but Baucus ultimately chose not to run again. He has since been named U.S. ambassador to China by President Obama.

One big-money Democratic operative said that while both sides accept this new corporate cash, Democrats have a harder time getting it -- there are only so many PhRMA deals on the table.

Republicans have been increasingly moving their fundraising and spending away from super PACs and toward dark money groups, which allow them to conceal the source of the money.

The Democratic operative guessed that at this point, Republicans may be taking in 100 corporate dollars for every one that reaches Democrats. "We don't really know -- it's at least 10-to-1." She added, "The truth is Democrats don't get much [501(c)(4)] corporate money, and that's because their interests often aren't aligned. I'd gladly have c4s shut down -- that would be a huge boon for us."